Ryan the Betrayer

Who doesn’t remember the boyish Paul Ryan, open-collared and brimming with confidence, coming down the gangplank from the USS Wisconsin as Mitt Romney introduced him to the nation as his running mate? He was the conservative hope, the author of the Ryan budget, the stick-it-to-the-big-spending-liberals guy no matter the political cost. Conservative hearts swelled across the nation at the thought of his being the conservative backbone of a Romney ticket. And true to form, he ran as a conservative.

Maybe it was the prospect of big publishing bucks, or the adoration of national media, or maybe he genuinely believes this is his ticket to the top of the GOP presidential ballot, but Paul Ryan has decided in his new book The Way Forward to damn conservatives as the crazies behind a “suicide mission” for the country—even as he writes, oddly, that Republicans must hew to conservativism to win. It’s no secret that Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and Rand Paul don’t have many friends in Washington, so I give credit to Ryan for not even feigning it. But we of the grassroots GOP are in no mood to hear that our push for defunding Obamacare and using the debt ceiling to force President Obama to curb reckless spending had all the wisdom of a Japanese kamikaze.

It’s true that Ryan’s book wasn’t the first instance of him sticking his fingers in the eyes of conservatives. Ever since the failed election, he has seemed to not want to take up the mantle of controversy that his 2012 budget placed on his shoulders. Paul Ryan didn’t seem to fancy the ads of him throwing old granny off the cliff. And who could blame him? The vicious attack ads, the smears from the New York Times editorial boards. All that wears on a person. And clearly Ryan didn’t have the stomach for it.

Post-Romney, Ryan was a different man, a man more inclined to compromise. His latest budget plan, hatched with Senate Democrat Patty Murray, was a pale shade of the crusading, penny-slashing budget he once proposed. It didn’t balance for 10 years. It took out the single-most effective method of cutting spending in decades: sequestration. It didn’t tackle entitlements nearly as aggressively as he once proposed. One of the areas where it did cut significantly — military pensions — resulted in such an uproar that he quickly reversed course and it was taken out of the bill.

As for the government shutdown he slams so hard in his book, the truth is that if Republicans had stood fast in the Senate, it would have worked out. Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Paul Ryan and the rest of the Republican congressional leadership should have publicly stated that their goal was to focus on one thing and that was taking care of the train wreck known as the Affordable Care Act. Instead, we saw those within our own party quickly separate themselves and join the Democrats in the message that the shutdown was a mistake.

Ryan would have benefited more politically, and possibly sold more books, if he had pointed out the positive parts of both factions within the Republican Party. Truth is, neither side will ever win election without the other. The “establishment” cannot win without the passion, hard work and diligence of the grassroots, while the grassroots (or as some might call it, the “Tea Party”) cannot win without the structure and financial backing of the “establishment.” Anyone on the right side of the aisle just wants to see a leader who is willing to stand strong for the principles that separate us from the Democrats. A leader who can unite our party rather then continue to drive a deeper split by hurling insults or belittling those on our side.

I do give Representative Ryan credit for trying to bond with those Americans who live outside of the Beltway by telling personal stories of how he overcame hardship and life at home in the fields of Wisconsin. Unfortunately, his voting record tells another tale. With votes supporting bills like the $1.1 Trillion Omnibus Spending Bill (H.R. 3547), which increased base discretionary spending by $24 billion in FY2014, the Highway Transit Fund Bailout (H.R. 5021), the fifth bailout of the fund since 2008, and the “farm bill” conference report, which gave major increases to the food stamp program, it is no wonder that the Heritage Action Scorecard gave Ryan a 61 percent rating, slightly below the overall House Republican average of 62 percent.

The fact is, while almost every incumbent senator or representative who faced grassroots challengers was victorious this campaign cycle, those triumphs did not come without their recognition of the overwhelming power of the conservatives within their districts. In fact, most of them embraced the “conservative” label and appropriated it for their own campaigns, knowing that most Republican voters have a positive opinion of any candidate who labels himself a “conservative”—while hoping would not take the time to verify that the voting record justifies the label.

If Paul Ryan does not have enough tact to forgo insulting the conservatives within his own party, then I have serious doubts he has the wisdom and judgment needed to lead the GOP to victory in 2016.

Scottie Nell Hughes is news director of the Tea Party News Network and author of the forthcoming ROAR: The New Conservative Woman Speaks Out.